McNARY BEECHER FRUMP was born May 6 1853 in Clay County, Indiana. He received his education in the common schools and, being a diligent student, he became a teacher which avocation he followed successfully for a number of years. He later abandoned this occupation for that of a farmer. He is a progressive and successful agriculturist and was twice chosen as president of the Clay County Farmers Institute. Mr. Frump is a Democrat in politics and represented Clay County in the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly. The only other public office he has held is that of township assessor. (also contains photo) Legislative and state manual of Indiana By Demarchus Clariton Brown, Indiana, Indiana. General Assembly, Indiana State Library Published by W.B. Burford, 1907 p. 122 ---------------------------------------------- History of Clay Co., Indiana, Vol. II, author: William Travis, publ. 1909 366 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY JOHN FRUMP.---On January 29, 1908, John Frump, of Bowling Green, Clay county, celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday in his spacious and beautiful country residence, which is almost literally the work of his hands, and, as such, is strikingly illustrative of his independent, sturdy, determined and unique character. Thirty-two years before he had burned the brick for the house on his own farm, cut the timber and had the lumber sawed which was to enter into the construction of his home, and to the minutest detail saw to it that the material was sound and the build ing was honest. As it stands today, with its neat sandstone trimmings and its substantial appearance, an acre of velvet lawn, graceful shade trees and pretty flower beds for a frame, the homestead is a symbol of the industrious, solid, bright and mellow old gentleman, whose hardworking, venturesome and useful life has been crowned by the admiration and affection of his associates. At the age when many men are huddled in a corner, mumbling absently of the past, John Frump is actively alive to the present, tending his flowers with loving care, driving briskly over the country in his rounds of relatives and friends, or sitting at his desk and writing letters of friendship or business with the same clear-cut and bold hand which adorns the books of the county treasurer of more than forty years ago; and this latter accomplished without glasses! In alluding to this unusual retention of physical and mental strength a close friend gives the following gentle touch to his character: "As a memorist he is phenomenally endowed, his retentiveness so acute that he recites readily without reference or prompting, declamations committed in his schoolboy days more than seventy years ago. It is an unusual spectacle to see a man of eighty-six years repairing to the village or rural school house, in response to an invitation to recite for the entertainment and edification of the children, which Mr. Frump frequently does. When but ten or twelve years of age, when he began reading in the old English reader, then the only reader in the public schools of the west, he committed a somewhat lengthy composition entitled 'Address to the Young,’ which he delivers to schools and parties at this time with apparently as much avidity and, delight as in the days of his youth. 'At no time,’ says Mr. Frump, 'during the lapse of more than seventy years since I memorized this address have I ever been in any way embarrassed or at any loss to reproduce and declaim it word for word.’ In his retire- ment from the activities of farm life Mr. Frump devotes his time to reading and floriculture, his flower gardens being the admiration and envy of all passers-by." This fine old pioneer of Clay county is a native of Highland county, Ohio, born near Hillsboro on the 29th of January, 1822, just twenty years prior to the birth of William H. McKinley. His parents were John and Mary Ann (Crabb) Frump, natives respectively of Delaware and Ohio. In 1835, when he was but thirteen years of age, the family came to Clay county and located on an eighty-acre farm in Posey township near the present site of Brazil. There the mother died in 1849, her husband surviving her until 1867, when he passed away at the age of seventy-six years. Both were buried in the Hill cemetery, Brazil. Eight children were born to them, of whom two sons and two daughters are living, John Frump being the eldest of the family. HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY 367 When Mr. Frump came to Clay county seventy-three years ago the family located in a forest well stocked with deer, wild cats and wolves, and the father, with his assistance and the help of everyone to the limit of his capacity, commenced the erection of a log house and the clearing of the eighty acres which was to constitute the farm. Their supplies were hauled from the vicinity of Terre Haute. At the age of seventeen his father gave him his "freedom," but a search for work among the farmers of the neighborhood indicated that there were neither surplus labor nor funds in circulation, so with three other young men the fortune-seeker walked to a locality in Vigo county near Fort Harrison. They tramped along all day without anything to eat but frozen turnips, and at night John Frump stopped with a farmer named David Sassene, who hired the grateful youth at ten dollars per month. Mr. Frump remained thus employed for about two years, but during this period (in the spring of 1842) made a trip to New Orleans with his employer, their mode of conveyance being by a flat boat down the Ohio and Mississippi. Upon his return to Clay county he traded in stock, split rails and otherwise busied himself for about three years. In 1845 he entered forty acres of land in Dick Johnson township, paying for it in stock at the rate of two dollars per acre. Later he purchased eighty acres in Van Buren township, for which he paid two horses and the remainder in cash -- the latter being earned by splitting rails at twenty-five cents per hundred and cutting cordwood at twenty cents per cord. Having paid for his eighty acres, he added a "forty" through much the same process. As illustrating the advance in land values in about twenty years, it may be stated that in 1868 Mr. Frump sold forty acres of his farm at one hundred dollars per acre. In the same year he bought four hundred and forty acres in sec- tions 25, 30 and 36, Washington township, which comprised his present homestead of two hundred and eighty acres. About five acres of the farm be transformed into an orchard, which bears a variety of fruit, and in 1876 he erected his present residence of eleven rooms, constructed of home-made brick, with sandstone trimmings and pronounced the finest house of the kind in Washington township. During the earlier years of his residence in Clay county Mr. Frump was an active Democrat and held many offices, both because of his popu- laritv and real ability. He cast his first vote for James K. Polk in the fall of 1844; held the offices of constable and trustee of Van Buren township (the latter for ten years) and served as county treasurer of Clay county from September, 1856, to September, 1869. In all these offices he was a model of precision, faithfulness, honor and general efficiency. He is still a Democrat, but for many years has taken no active part in politics. His identification with the Christian church, on the other hand, is as earnest and steadfast as ever. At the organization of the church at Bowling Green, in the late 'sixties, he became an elder, and continued to hold the office for about seven years. He is now a member of the Washington township church at Bellair. In March, 1848, Mr. Frump wedded Miss Betsy Jane Matthews, daughter of William and Susan (Storm) Matthews, of Parke county, Indiana. The father was a native of Tennessee and the mother of Ohio, and they were married in Parke county. Afterward they spent some time in western Illinois, and returned to Bowling Green, where they died and were buried. Mrs. Matthews spent her last days at the home of Mr. Frump. John Frump has become the father of five sons and six daugh- Vol. II-24 368 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY ters. Laura became the wife of M. B. Crist, of Morgan county, Indiana. Alice married Elias Kilmer, of Clay City, who was clerk of the circuit court at the time the county seat was removed to Brazil. After his death his widow married Joseph Lind, of Terre Haute, who died, the mother of three children, William M. Frump, another child, is now a resident of Bowling Green; M. B. Frump is of Washington township; Ben Franklin Frump, of Jasonville, Indiana; B. D. Frump, also of Washington township; Alma, wife of Bud Chapman, now deceased; Rosilla F., deceased; and Mary C., wife of John W. Knipe, who lives with her father. The venerable and revered mother of this family died September 11, 1901, aged seventy-five years and five months. Mr. Frump has been blessed with thirty-nine grandchildren, of whom thirty-one are living, and with seventeen great-grandchildren, of whom thirteen are alive. These rising and honorable representatives of his own flesh and blood are the inspiration and the solace of his passing years, and in the younger generations he lives his earlier life anew. Thus his old age is lightened of its burdens, and is kept fresh and green. ---------------------------------------------- History of Clay Co., Indiana author: William Travis, publ. 1909 Vol. 1, pp. 204-206 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY Marvin B. Crist, a native of Sullivan county, Indiana, son of Henry W. and Lucinda (Liston) Crist, born March 24, 1845, the family moving across the line into Clay county, in 1846, locating in Lewis township, where the aged father still resides; attended the public schools and began teaching at nineteen years of age; was elected county surveyor on the Democratic ticket in the fall of 1868 and re-elected in 1870. On the 2d day of April, 1871, he married Miss Laura Frump, daughter of John and Betsy J. (Matthews) Frump, of Washington township. In the Democratic county convention of 1872 he came within five votes of being nominated on the first ballot for Sheriff, with four other candidates in the race, when, for reasons, he withdrew before the second ballot. After the expiration of his second term of office he devoted two or more years to the surveying of mines, a great deal of interest and activity having meanwhile developed in the coal mining industry, He also gave his attention to the buying and selling of real estate, not as an agent, on commission, but on his own "hook," and met with his first reverse in the business in 1873, when he invested $18,000 in clean cash in a coalshaft,which shrank to $3,000 in the panic of that year, due to the "resumption act." On the removal of the county seat he located at Brazil, where, for two years, he was city civil engineer. Subsequently, lie practiced law for two years in partnership with George A. Byrd. His personal and business acquaintance extended into all parts of the county, and he knew, practically, every land-holder. Having acquired a large tract of unimproved land in the extreme southeast part of the county (Harrison township), he located on the same in 1878, where he continued to reside for nine years, and during this time cleared up five hundred acres of timber land for the plow and made twenty-five thousand rails with which was built between five and six miles of fence. During this time, too, he dealt largely in stock. Having sold his land, in 1887, he went to southwestern Kansas with the view to investment and speculation, where he became a member of a company organized to establish county seats in the five corner counties of the state. Owing to the fact that there were rival companies in the field building towns in competition, sailing upon this sea was not very smooth, and the company with which he was identified succeeded in establishing but two of the five county seats. Out of this rivalry resulted the numerous vendetta of that day in the history of Kansas, one of which ended in the killing of Sheriff Cross and a number of others at what was known as "The Haystack Murder," in "No Man’s Land," immediately south of Stevens county, Kansas. Then the boom was off, and the strenuous life backed on every hand by Winchesters was no longer a paying proposition. After tarrying a year and a half in southwestern Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, Mr. Crist drifted over into Arkansas, where he spent the fall and winter of 1889, then returned to Indiana, locating at Indianapolis and engaging in the manufacture of an embossing machine, having purchased for a nominal sum a patented device for embossing wood by pressing a heated rotary die deep into the surface of the wood sought to be ornamented. This device had been pronounced a failure, owing to a mechanical feature which was thought to be impossible to remedy. But after a year’s experimentation, including repeated failures, Mr. Crist succeeded in patenting a number of improvements (some of them in the name of an assistant who assigned to him) which made the machine a success and, for the time being, revolutionized the method of carving and ornamenting wood. For a time, then, the demand for the device was simply wonderful, when he sold a half interest to H. B. Hibben, of the firm of Hibben, Holwig and Reese, wholesale dry goods merchants of Indianapolis, for $25,000, when a $250,000 stock company was organized, New York parties offering to take over the entire business at $225,000, which offer was declined. Soon, machines were introduced in England, France and Germany. In speaking of the success achieved along this line Mr. Crist said to the writer: "I built and placed the first machines that were ever put into the chair and furniture factories of this country, Canada, Mexico, England, France and Germany, which are considered indispensable in certain lines of work. This is about the only thing I have ever done the accomplishment of which I have felt to be deservedly meritorious." In course of time came competition, as along all other lines, other devices having, meanwhile, been patented which did the same kind of work, in a way, so that the large profits realized could be no longer maintained. After ten years in this business he sold out to the trust and resumed the pursuits of agriculture and stock-raising on a fine farm of two hundred and sixty-five acres in Morgan county, twenty miles south of Indianapolis and two miles east of Monrovia, in a Quaker neighborhood, where he now resides and thinks himself comfortably located for life. The subject of this sketch is a man of energy, industry and intelligence and of agreeable social and conversational qualities, who thinks for himself, and accepts the dicta of no creed nor cult until weighed in the balance of reason and common sense. Mrs. Crist is a member of the Christian church, possessed of many virtues exemplified in faith and practice. ---------------------------------------------- HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY vol 1, p. 227 Elias C. Kilmer, a native of Holmes county, Ohio, born near Winesburg, May 8, 1848, came to Clay county with his parents in 1857, locating in Harrison township. Up to the age of twenty years he assisted his father on the farm and at the saw-mill, attending the public schools when he could be spared during the winter season; later he attended the Center Point graded school and the State Normal, each one term. At twenty-one years he began teaching and taught several years in the public schools of Bowling Green and of Harrison township, meanwhile, during the summer months, serving as deputy in the recorder’s office under Peter T. Luther. In 1872 he was placed on the Democratic county ticket for surveyor, but, notwithstanding his personal popularity, was defeated with the ticket generally. During the succeeding four years he again turned his attention to teaching and saw-milling. In the month of October, 1875, he married Miss Alice Frump, daughter of ex-County Treasurer John Frump, of Washington township. In 1876 Mr. Kilmer was nominated by his party for clerk of the Clay circuit court and elected by a large majority, attesting his personal strength all over the county. Within the first year of his service in this capacity the county records were removed to Brazil. Having faithfully and efficiently served his term of clerkship and retired from the office, he was nominated in the spring of 1881 on the Citizens’ ticket for mayor of the city of Brazil and elected against a usually large Republican majority. This position he filled with honor and credit for the term of two years, and soon thereafter, his health declining, removed to Clay City, where he died, January 30, 1885, of the fell destroyer, consumption, aged thirty-six years, eight months and twenty-two days. He was laid to rest in Cottage Hill cemetery, Brazil, having been preceded in burial there by two infant children. 228 HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY Elias C. Kilmer was a young man of good talent, close application and strong character, of a high sense of honor, who never proved recreant to a trust reposed in him by a friend nor by the public. After his death Mrs. Kilmer returned to Brazil, where, on the 4th of July, 1888, she married Joseph A. Lynd, and there she continued to reside until the time of her death. A son and a daughter of the first marriage survive, Karl Kilmer, of Harrison township, and Mrs. Hester Wilkinson, Brazil. ---------------------------------------------- A history of northwest Missouri edited by Walter Williams Edition: illustrated Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1915 Item notes: v. 3 At books.google.com, original from the New York Public Library Digitized Jan 23, 2008 p. 1580 JOHN ALFRED LILLY. This particular branch of the Lilly family has a country home, which once visited is not soon forgotten, in Grant Township of Harrison County, on rural delivery route No. 2 out of Ridgeway. The name has been identified with this section since before the war. It has been associated with some of the most progressive features of farming enterprise, and as home-makers and people of p. 1581 intrinsic culture and upholders of morality and high ideals few families in Northwest Missouri have a better record. John Alfred Lilly was born in Livingston County, Missouri, April 15, 1860, but has lived in Harrison County since 1861, and his present farm contains land that was entered by his grandfather as early as 1856. The family came to Missouri about 1850 and first located in Livingston County. Grandfather John Lilly had lived in several states before he came to Missouri. He was born in Maryland in 1796, was reared in Virginia, and when a young man moved to Park County, Indiana, where he married Rebecca Storms, moving later to Ross County, Ohio, and they subsequently, after the birth of some children, moved to Illinois, where she died in Hancock County. In that state he married for his second wife Rebecca Matthews, and in moving out to Missouri they came by wagon and team to Livingston County. The grandfather died in 1863, and his second wife died in Jamesport. The children of the first union were: Joseph M., who died in Livingston County; Elizabeth, who married John T. Cams and died in Jasper 'County, Missouri; Mary A., who married John Browning and died in Hancock County, Illinois; and John, who is sketched in the following paragraphs. The second wife became the mother of: Perry H., of Jamesport; Theophilus, who died as a Union soldier in the Civil war; Milton, who died in McDonald County near Indian Springs, Missouri; and Florence, who married Henry Lee and lives at Hutchinson, Kansas. One of the venerable and highly esteemed old citizens of Harrison County is John Lilly, son of the above John and father of John Alfred. He was born December 14, 1833, in Ross County, Ohio, and has passed the. age of four score. Most of his youth was spent in Hancock County, Illinois, where he attended country schools. In early life he became a farmer, and followed it all through his vigorous career. He came to manhood in Northwest Missouri, and in 1861 enlisted in the army at Bethany in Capt. John A. Page's company of the Sixth Missouri, under Col. E. C. Catherwood. His command saw service in Arkansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory, was at Fort Smith when it was captured from the enemy, and was in the fight at Newtonia, Arkansas^ He was mustered out at the close of the war, and escaped wounds and capture. While he has spent the last nineteen years retired at Ridgeway, John Lilly has achievements to his credit as a farmer such as few other men can parallel. He had a knack of succeeding often where others failed, and came to own and control 600 acres of land and at one time was the largest fruit grower in Harrison County. He set out extensive orchards of apples, pears, peaches, plums and cherries, and also derived revenues from stock raising. His father before him had whig affiliations, and his own support was given regularly to the republican candidates, though in 1912 he followed many other republicans to the support of the progressive leader, and has since reconsidered the action and is now faithful to fundamental republican doctrines. John Lilly married Arternissa Westfall, who was born at Quincy, Illinois, a daughter of Alfred Westfall. She died on the old Lilly homestead in Harrison County October 21, 1892. Her children are: Angeline, now the wife of Lycurgus Edwards of Howell County, Missouri, first married Newton Beeson, who was the father of her children; Jane married Joel Harrold, of Blythedale. Missouri; Elizabeth is the wife of Alfred C. Sellers of Ridgeway; John Alfred is sketched in following paragraphs; Joseph Milton died at Ridgeway, leaving a family; Clara R. married Caleb Young of Ridgeway; Catherine married Woodson Baber of Jamesport; Rose is the wife of Norman Johnson on the old Lilly homestead of Harrison County; and Charles died in child- p. 1582 hood. For his second wife John Lilly married Alice Burwell, who is the mother of Vesper Ann, a teacher in Harrison County. John Alfred Lilly grew up on the farm that he still owns, and his education came from the neighboring district school. Among the pupils in that school then was Theophilus Carns, later a prominent lawyer of Kansas City, but most of them became farmers and several of them are still living in Harrison County. Mr. Lilly was with his parents until of age, and the day after his marriage in Ridgeway moved out to his present farm, with which all the memories and associations of his mature life are identified. The land, when first occupied by himself and Mrs. Lilly, was a piece of wild prairie. It had never produced a crop under cultivation, and the house they lived in for several years was a single room 14 by 15 feet. During the eight years they called that home all their children but one were born. As a farmer Mr. Lilly has been both a grain and stock man. By purchase and additions he now owns 460 acres in this community. Twenty-five acres'are planted in all varieties of fruit, and in some respects that is the most interesting feature of the farmstead. They have the much talked of Himalaya berry, which in 1914 bore its first crop in this country. This fruit resembles the blackberry, it grows on a trellis like a grape, is perfectly hardy, and bears in clusters from June to October, the fruit always coming through the leaves to the light. In spite of the extreme drought of 1914 it surprised its owners by its prolific fruiting and bearing. The family has made a specialty of flowers, annuals and perennials, and their home is a bower of beauty and delight to those who know the flowers, shrubs and trees which grow in profusion. The lawn is shaded with maple, elm and box elder, while in the garden are found both the chestnut and the white walnut, the latter a disappointment so far as fruiting is concerned. One valuable item of their experience is that by using salt in the treatment of pear trees every year, they bear better, smoother and larger fruit, and with less blight on the tree trunk. As a stock man Mr. Lilly has been breeding Herefords for fifteen years. He keeps up his register and is a member of the Hereford Association of the United States. "Old Defender" of the Comstock herd was the sire of much of his stock, and he has kept the blood of prize winners circulating through his own stock. The poultry yard of the Lilly homestead contains the Toulouse goose, the Hamburg chicken and also the pure Plymouth Rock and White Orpington, Pekin ducks, Pearl guineas, Bourbon red and slate turkeys. It is a fact that will interest many that the revenues from eggs and chickens average about four hundred dollars annually. In his civic and social relations Mr. Lilly has been consistently a republican, though voting for Roosevelt in 1912. He declined the nomination for representative of his county in the Legislature, and for many years served on the school board. For twenty-two years he has been an elder in the Christian Church, and with the aid of his good wife has trained his children in the same faith. Their home has always been the home of the ministers and the orphan and no one is ever turned from their door who needs help. Mr. and Mrs. Lilly began their united careers a little more than thirty years ago, after their marriage in Ridgeway on November 25, Brown Book, church papers like the Christian Evangelist and the Christian Standard, and the Sunday school journal, Front Rank. Mrs. Lilly was formerly a public school teacher, and for many years has been a deaconess in her church. She is also a graduate of the White Cross School of Nursing at. Jamestown, New York. Mrs. Lilly was born December 25, 1862, at LaFayette, Wisconsin, her maiden name being Emma Burwell. Her parents were Jedediah and Lucinda (Wilcox) Burwell. The former was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, September 1, 1826, in 1859 went to LaFayette County, Wisconsin, where he married, and ten years later moved to Missouri, locating in Daviess County and in 1872 moving to Harrison County. A cooper by trade, he followed farming in Missouri, and died January 25, 1891. His first wife was a Miss Haver, and her children were: Sarah, who married John Ethridge of Monroe, Wisconsin; Anna, wife of Edmond Opdyke of Ridge way; Henry C. of Reynolds, Nebraska; Ella, who married J. T. Travis, of Bethany; James H., of Loup City, Nebraska. Lucinda Wilcox, the second wife,' was born in September, 1832, in Pittston, Pennsylvania, and died at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lilly December 22, 1912. By her marriage to Mr. Burwell she had the following children: John, who died in infancy; Mrs. Lilly; Aaron G., of Lane, Kansas; Melissa, wife of George Jones, of May, Oklahoma; Ira B., of Civil Bend, Missouri; Lewis, who died in infancy; and Charles H., of Shattuck, Oklahoma; also an infant son who died at birth. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Lilly are: John Ralph, a farmer near the old home, married Ida Reeder and their children are Clarence Leroy and Ernest Raymond; Nellie is the wife of Charles M. Reeder of Ridgeway, a Baptist minister, and their children are Esther Charlotte, Esta Claire and Charles Washington; Charles Burwell married Lelie Henry, lives on the home farm; and Jeanne and Joseph Westfall are also at home. The daughter, Mrs. Reeder, was educated in the Bethany High School and was a teacher in the public schools until her marriage. Miss Jeanne finished the four-year course in the Ridgeway High School at the age of fifteen, and stood second in a class of ten, later attended the Warrensburg Normal, and for three years has held a first grade certificate and is now working rapidly to the goal of obtaining a life certificate in Missouri. The two sons, Charles and Joseph, both quit school after the course in the Ridgeway high, and all the sons are enterprising young farmers.